The Norton Sound’s red king crab fishery opens Wednesday, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists announced the region’s harvest rate will be slightly below the statewide rate.

Area manager Jim Menard with ADF&G said models calculate a total of 3.2 million pounds of harvestable crab in the Bering Sea. Area fishermen will be about to catch 12 percent of that biomass this summer, slightly below the state’s rate of 15 percent.

“The management level we’ve set is about 383,000 pounds, and that’s based on the model accepted at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting,” which met in Nome earlier this month, Menard said.

That level includes “both the summer, and the next coming winter,” Menard added. “Including the 34,000 pounds caught this past winter—[and] projecting that we would catch about the same amount next year—we would be at what’s called the allowable biological catch. So that’s why we set the level at 12 percent.”

Fish and Game sets those catch rates with models that estimate the total red king crab biomass in the Norton Sound region. The raw data for those models comes from an extensive trawl survey conducted every three years.

This year is a trawl year, and Menard said the agency plans to send out its research ship in mid-July for several weeks, weather permitting.

]]>9983Amid Demands for Action, Fishery Council Votes for Analysis of Salmon Bycatchhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/06/09/amid-demands-for-action-fishery-council-votes-for-analysis-of-salmon-bycatch/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/06/09/amid-demands-for-action-fishery-council-votes-for-analysis-of-salmon-bycatch/#commentsMon, 09 Jun 2014 18:47:24 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=9612The analysis potentially opens up the pollock fishing industry to new limitations and early closures, but falls far short of the immediate relief many subsistence users called for.]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2014/06/2014-06-09-NPFMC-Pollock-Salmon-bycatch.mp3

Salmon caught by pollock fisheries in the Bering Sea was among the most contentious issues before the North Pacific Fishery Management Council during its past week of meetings in Nome. On Saturday, after a day and a half of discussion and hours of public testimony, the council voted before a packed room to re-examine how it handles both Chinook and chum salmon bycatch.

The move potentially opens up the pollock fishing industry to new limitations and early closures, but fell far short of the immediate relief many subsistence users called for.

Those calls were delivered in person and directly to the Council, as dozens of local subsistence users spoke to the need for swift action.

Nome resident Barb Amarok spoke to the role salmon play in culture and identity: “Please hear what we have been saying about the importance of fish as a food staple to maintain our physical and spiritual well-being, and our identities as proud and distinct peoples. Salmon are not disposable. People are not disposable. So when the collateral damage of salmon bycatch threatens our existence, industry actions must be changed.”

Brandon Amahsuk spoke as a subsistence fisherman: “I have heard testimony from the pollock industry saying in the last couple of days they only catch a few salmon as bycatch. I ask you, in recent years, is 122,000 Chinook only a few? When the subsistence salmon fishermen aren’t even allowed to harvest one? [The industry is] being asked what to do. The subsistence user is being dictated to. Simply put, to not fish, to not put food on their table for their families.”

Louie Green Jr. echoed that sentiment: “We’re in a pathetic time of economics. I’m frustrated by what’s going on. Seeing as how the industry is allowed to take more and waste more than we are allowed to subsist on is very, a very hard thing for me to understand.”

John “Sky” Starkie spoke on behalf of the Association of Village Council Presidents and urged strong rollbacks of bycatch limits: “The inequities are just staggering for people on the river. And something needs to happen. I come before you to ask for a reduction of the performance standard to 14,500 which we believe is a very reasonable request. It represents the average bycatch taken over the last five or so years. If the industry can perform at that standard, they should be held to it, in this situation where every single fish counts.”

And Ben Stevens, a Koyukan Athabascan who traveled more than 480 miles from the Upper Yukon community of Stevens Village, numbering about 100 people, asked the Council for meaningful action: “You know, we’re just a bunch of normal folks [in Stevens Village] that really love life and appreciate love, kindness, each other, family. We’re not asking for anything but just a little consideration. But I am asking you, I am expecting you, I would like to demand of you, some courage to help us stem this tide.”

“Because it’s happening to us,” Stevens said, pounding the table with his fist. “The fact of the matter is the fish are going away, and we need help. You guys are it.”

Attempting to answers those calls to action, the Council unanimously voted for an analysis of salmon bycatch measures that they said puts pressure on the pollock industry.

Cora Campbell, the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the ostensible lead author of the measure, said that kind of pressure on industry will provide the fastest relief.

“The things that can happen much more quickly than changes to federal regulations is changes to industry agreements,” Campbell said after the meeting. “And that’s why you saw the Council talking with industry, telling industry the changes that we’d like to see to industry agreements, because that is the way we can most immediately affect savings.”

The Council’s analysis aimed to tackle bycatch in several ways. First, by rolling Chinook and chum salmon bycatch measures into a single policy. When existing chum and Chinook rules conflict, the rules governing Chinook would take precedence.

The second part of the analysis would give pollock fishermen further incentive to avoid catching any salmon species; incentives the Council tweaked to be more restrictive on vessels that consistently catch the most salmon.

“We’ve seen some vessels do very well at doing better on bycatch and some vessels have not done as well,” Campbell said. “One of the things that industry heard loud and clear from the Council is that is not acceptable. We expect all vessels to be doing everything that they can, and that they need to go back and look at their agreements and find a way to deal with those vessels that we call outliers … those vessels that are doing significantly worse [with regard to salmon bycatch] than everybody else.”

Part of the incentive tweaks would also require relatively new devices on pollock trawl nets that exclude salmon.

Also in the analysis was a shift of the dates for the pollock fisheries. Data presented to the Council showed that fishermen are best able to avoid salmon by fishing early in the season. Accordingly, the analysis looks at shifting the start date for the Bering Sea pollock “B season” to June 1, and could shorten the pollock season by as much as a month by closing as early as mid-September. Options to close on October 1 and mid-October remain on the table.

The hard cap for king salmon remained at 60,000 fish, but Commissioner Campbell said the performance standard, set around 47,591 fish, is the figure “the industry manages to.” Part of the analysis ordered Saturday would reduce that number during years of weak king salmon runs (defined as an abundance below 500,000 fish) by 25 to 60 percent.

The meeting didn’t leave industry representatives happy, nor were local fishermen given the tightened restrictions, low hard caps, or emergency closures they had called for. Outgoing Council Chair Eric Olson, who was presiding over his final meeting after nearly a decade on the Council, said the crisis state of Chinook salmon means the task before future Councils could require drastic measures.

“It’s not incumbent on us to come up with a program that the industry has to agree with 100 percent,” Olson said. “The makeup of the Chinook salmon resource has been drastically changed, and it’s not out of question, in my view, to fundamentally change the program that we have.”

The Council is preparing for its final meetings in Nome Monday, including “staff tasking” that sets schedules for just how quickly parts of the analysis could be implemented. That could ultimately lead to significant lag between Saturday’s recommendations and actual in-the-field implementation.

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council reconvenes for another meeting in Anchorage this October.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/06/09/amid-demands-for-action-fishery-council-votes-for-analysis-of-salmon-bycatch/feed/19612Advisory Panel Declines Lowering Salmon Bycatch Limits After Hearing Public Testimonyhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/06/06/advisory-panel-declines-lowering-salmon-bycatch-limits-after-hearing-public-testimony/
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 19:06:28 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=9589Yesterday an advisory panel on salmon bycatch heard more than an hour of public testimony—part of the ongoing debate on how to limit the number of king salmon accidentally caught by pollock fishermen at a time of unprecedented restrictions on subsistence fishing and historically low king salmon runs.]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2014/06/2014-06-06-NPFMC-AP-Salmon-Bycatch.mp3

Last Thursday an advisory panel on salmon bycatch heard more than an hour of public testimony—part of the ongoing debate on how to limit the number of king salmon accidentally caught by pollock fishermen at a time of unprecedented restrictions on subsistence fishing and historically low king salmon runs.

The panel makes recommendations to the governing board of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which is meeting this week in Nome.

The council was told earlier in the week that, at this point in the pollock fishing season, the number of bycatch Chinooks is up from 8,237 this time last year to 11,536 so far this season.

The theme at yesterday’s testimony before the panel was one of overwhelming dissatisfaction with how managers are handling the crash in Chinook.

“We are subsistence people,” said Mary Katchiak of Holy Cross, standing as she addressed the panel. “Is that a nice story I have to tell my grandchildren? So they can tell their children how the state of Alaska stepped in and just depleted every little hope I had for my family? What are you going to give me for that? You think you’re going to compensate me? It’d take your lifetime to do that.”

Austin Ahmasuk is the Sitnasuak Native Corporation’s land manager and told the advisory panel the jargon-heavy discussions on fish management keeps the public from meaningfully participating.

“The disparity in the council’s actions and the testimony that we give, or we provide—it seems as though there is not a holistic or cumulative effect, or impact analysis, or even just environmental justice,” Ahmasuk said.

And Tim Smith of Nome framed the administrative policies as favoring the interests of industry at a time when subsistence users on the Yukon are limited to six-foot dip nets.

“This is unbelievable to me. But if you’re fishing with a three-hundred foot trawler there’s no restrictions. You can do anything you want. Take 60,000 kings out. And let’s face it, you’re fishing for king salmon. It’s called ‘bycatch,’ but that’s what you’re fishing for, king salmon and Pollock, it’s a mixed-stock fishery,” Smith said.

The last member of the public to speak was George Hutchins, a commercial pollock trawler, who says the industry is being scapegoated over Chinook bycatch, even though the science isn’t there to prove it’s at fault for depleting the runs.

“I don’t believe that there’s one single answer. You could outlaw pollock fishing tomorrow, and it’s not going to bring back your salmon. You could outlaw it for 20 years and it’s not going to help.”

Many members of the advisory panel agreed. During discussion of action items the board was split. One amendment aimed to lower bycatch numbers, and tie the upper limits with reports on the number of Chinooks. The competing measure took a more moderate approach, increasing incentives to avoid chum bycatch, but it didn’t touch policy on Chinooks.

John Gruver introduced the chum avoidance measure. He and other members speaking on it’s behalf say bycatch reductions are a premature strategy to address declines in Western Alaska salmon stocks. And he says the pollock industry has already been compliant respecting current bycatch limits.

Panel Chair Becca Gisclair voted for the lower bycatch targets, saying it’s inexcusable for thousands of incidental fish to be removed from the water when take limits across western Alaska are effectively zero.

“We’re at a point where every Chinook literally counts,” Gisclair told the panel ahead of voting.

Ultimately members voted 11-8 in favor of the more moderate chum measure, which will go before the full council for a vote this morning.

Is Norton Sound red king crab in decline? That question, as well as questions about crab stocks in fisheries across Alaska, were the focus of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s meeting in Nome Monday, the first in a slate of meetings scheduled through next week.

On Monday the Council’s scientific and statistical committee heard reports on red king crab in the Sound, and “from what we heard … it’s a declining abundance. And so, likely, the numbers [for commercial and subsistence users] will be lower than previous years,” said Pat Livingston, the committee chair.

Livingston stressed that no catch limits or overfishing limits had been set, and that the Council was first trying to gauge whether it had the best data available on which they could base future management decisions. But not everyone at the meeting agreed with the assessment of decline.

“If you talk to any crab fisherman, or subsistence crab fishermen, they’ll tell you about how many small crab they had in their pot,” said Charlie Lean, a former Dept. of Fish and Game manager who now works as a fisheries advisor for Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation.

Lean said those small crab in the pots are a good thing, a sign of an expected—and cyclical—population boom in Norton Sound crab every three or four years. Lean said it’s part of the ebb and flow of the Sound’s crab population, but the committee isn’t seeing that pattern with its trawl surveys every three years. At least, Lean said, not yet.

“When you graph this all out you have this saw tooth sort of graph of young crab entering the fishery and then there’s no crab for a while and then there’s crab again and on again, off again,” he said. “It’s not a flat line that climbs, it’s a saw tooth that climbs, and we have a saw tooth that’s climbing.”

Traditionally, subsistence harvests have been small enough to not warrant inclusion in the overall abundance of crab. The winter commercial fishery was often disregarded in the model, too. But Lean said the winter fishery has been considerable—”no longer negligible”—and the committee was factoring in both winter commercial and subsistence user groups into its models.

With that stronger commercial harvest, and the very real concern of tighter catch limits for all crab harvesters, Nome resident Roy Ashenfelter implored the Council to safeguard the subsistence harvests in any limits that may be set.

“The data that you’ll get on subsistence crabbing is gonna be limited,” Ashenfelter said. “It’s gonna be small, compared to the commercial industry. But it is very important to us. It is a very valuable resource that we get out and go provide a different resource of food for us, on the table. It’s an invaluable subsistence resource for us.”

The committee also heard data on Aleutian Islands golden king crab—which has been seeing steady numbers—and reviewed Adak red king crab, which has been closed to any harvest due to low numbers for more than a decade.

The committee’s meeting is scheduled to continue Tuesday with discussions on Chinook and chum salmon bycatch.